Thursday, March 22, 2007

News for 03-21-07

03-21-07 - Iran warns of 'illegal' steps over nukes Iran's top leader warned Wednesday his country will pursue "illegal actions" if the U.N. Security Council insists it halt uranium enrichment, an apparent reference to nuclear activities outside international regulations.

03-21-07 - Iran 'willing to act illegally' "Until today, what we have done is in accordance with international regulations," he was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying. "But if they take illegal actions, we too can take illegal actions and will do so."

03-21-07 - House OKs Subpoenas for Top Bush Aides A House panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove and other top White House aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.

03-21-07 - US looks to sell arms in Gulf to try to contain Iran ** the arms sales, which would come on top of a recent upgrade of US Patriot antimissile interceptors in Qatar and Kuwait and the deployment of two aircraft carriers to the Gulf, could spark concerns that further military buildup in the volatile region would bring Washington closer to a confrontation with Iran.

03-21-07 - New doubts over Iraq intelligence On the fourth anniversary of the invasion, Baghdad experienced at least six bomb explosions, with up to 20 dead and dozens of injuries. Much of Iraq is still in a state of violence and fear.

03-21-07 - War drill fails to reassure Israelis Israel's largest-ever such drill was meant to signal to the public that the government and safety services had learned the lessons of this summer's war with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.

03-21-07 - U.S.: Europe won't stop Iran terror funding "The major stumbling block -- the one that looms larger than all the others combined -- is that the Europeans won't recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization," Stuart Levey, the U.S. Treasury's under secretary for terrorism financing, told the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday.

03-21-07 - Grim upsurge for Lebanon prosthetics Prosthetic limb-fitting centres in southern Lebanon are struggling to cope with the rising toll from the one million unexploded munitions left over from last year's war with Israel. .....The UN has said that clearing them has been made more difficult by Israel not revealing the precise areas they targeted.

03-21-07 - Calling out Satterfield Next opportunity: March 27 at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, when Satterfield speaks on "Iraq: Prospects for Peace at Home and Progress with its Neighbors." WINEP was, after all, spun off from AIPAC back in the late 1980s, its events are attended by the pro-Israel community's best and brightest and I know that a lot of its staff's attitude toward the Rosen-Weissman case can be summed up in the unexpandable acronym, WTF?